


When Light Is Put Away

by Devilbaby



Category: Sherlock Holmes (Downey films)
Genre: Dark fic, M/M, Manipulation, dark!Holmes, emotional blackmail
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-07
Updated: 2017-02-07
Packaged: 2018-04-13 11:49:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 9,855
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4520826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Devilbaby/pseuds/Devilbaby
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A dark take on post-wedding events. After Watson's nuptials Holmes is consumed with jealousy and bitterness. He goes out and has rough sex with whoever he can find, ending up with injuries. Watson thinks he was raped and Holmes lets him believe it. But how long can the charade last, and what happens at the end of it?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> "We grow accustomed to the Dark -  
> When light is put away -"
> 
> Emily Dickinson
> 
> Watson is a good man who's being horribly lied to, and Holmes is a bastard. Featuring dark, manipulative, possibly insane Holmes at his worst (or best).

It had not been his intention to deceive. Not at first, anyway. 

He was simply engaging in what was for him a normal - if highly infrequent - pastime. One that had been rare enough in years past, but with the arrival of his erstwhile flatmate had ceased to be necessary at all. He did not know why having the doctor near calmed the savage thing inside him but it did, and Holmes had been pathetically grateful for it, clinging to his friend like a beaten mutt to the first hand that offered kindness. 

It was, he noted with the clarity of hindsight, an appallingly stupid thing to do.

But he had been caught off guard, unprepared and woefully ill-equipped to deal with the situation. Watson had been - was meant to be - a fellow lodger, nothing more. A quiet, unassuming man with a quiet, unassuming nature. A war veteran sick and pale and wanting only a bit of sanctuary, somewhere quiet in which to convalesce. Of course he would find no safe quarter with Holmes, but the detective had been confident he could fake it for a little while at least. 

And that was the crux of it, the thing counted upon, the immutable _fact_ tried and tested and writ in stone: John Watson had never been meant to _stay_. 

No one ever did.

Oh, but he had, hadn't he? Precisely _why_ he stayed Holmes did not know and that shook him; the world held few mysteries for the detective and the hearts of men the least among them. But the mystery of Watson confounded him, and - if he were entirely honest - intrigued him as well. So he had applied his science to the problem, testing the variables. He had been angry, he had been coarse and crude. He had shouted, thundered, and sulked in stony silence for days on end. He had badgered and harassed and fought and cast a thousand tiny barbs made of sharp-edged words that hooked into the skin and buried deep, looking always for the line he knew existed somewhere, the one that once crossed would leave him in search of a new flatmate.

Yet through it all, Watson remained steadfast. Sometimes he would absorb Holmes' abuse with a quiet sort of dignity, shoulders stooping under a martyr's weight as though the detective's vitriol was nothing more than the cross he had chosen to bear, and other times he would return fire with the swiftness of a man used to battle, the space between them filling with knives. But though Holmes drove him to the brink again and again, each time wondering with a fatalistic sort of curiosity if _this_ would be the last, Watson stayed. He stayed and laid the detective bare with nothing more than a patient sigh and a soft word, and far too late Holmes realized he'd been fighting a war he'd been doomed to lose even before it'd begun, and in the end he'd given Watson everything; all he had. His kindness and his cruelty, his sanity and his madness, his most staggering knowledge, and his most profound ignorance. He held nothing back, save that one thing; he had not shown Watson that dark place within, the one that drained the light from the sky and the color from the world, the one that fed on pain and anger and madness...the one Watson was there to save him from.

And he had, for awhile. Then the damn fool went and fell in love. 

Holmes supposed he had always known it would happen, in the same abstract way men know they're going to die. He grasped it as a concept, but raged against the inevitability as surely as any man raged against the dying of the light. With about the same results, too.  
Watson was married. 

 

Holmes bares his teeth, and wishes his former friend all the joys of love that have so recently been bequeathed to himself.


	2. Darkness

So now he makes his way back here, to the dark spaces polite society tells itself doesn't exist. Tells itself it doesn't _need_.

He knows better. 

It's a filthy place. Filthy and hopeless, twisted and ugly but it's honest; as close as it gets anyway. Here the polish of society wears thin against the constant abrasion of human misery and the dark side of humanity leers like a corpse from every corner. The people who gather here have no need to lie to each other about what's in the dark; they know.

The thing inside him _twists_ and he snarls at the night air; at the fog and the damp and the whole bitter, wicked world. He is feeling violent tonight, raw and lethal and hurt, and he wants pain. His, theirs...it doesn't matter and when not even the visceral savagery of the boxing ring brings peace he takes the low road down past the docks to where the buildings sag against each other like spent whores and the stench of fetid river water and humans living in squalor chokes the air. Pale faces flutter like ghosts beneath the jaundiced glow of the streetlamps, pinched and hollow-eyed and desperate. In an alleyway just off the main road two tramps have expired - from exposure and consumption, respectively - their bodies laying stiff and cold in half-frozen puddles of their own waste. Holmes thinks there is a deeply appropriate metaphor to be found there, but he doesn't bother to look for it.

He wears no disguises; he will not allow himself the solace of pretending to be anyone else tonight. He finds his place; a decrepit pile of dry rot and sin. No one knows him here and no one wants to. He finds his man as well; a black toothed giant with a scar over his face and a twisted lip. They trade glances but not names because names are only a fiction in this place and they both know it. Holmes eyes him in a way he knows will not be misunderstood and is rewarded with a wide open grin that promises terrible things. 

They take their business elsewhere, past the bar and up rickety stairs that complain at their weight to a room with bars on the windows and a shredded mattress on the floor. Holmes has paid for a full night but wonders if he will last more than a few hours with this man. He's large and mean as a bull, the scars on his knuckles mapping a life of violence and nothing about him reminds Holmes of the doctor - no kind eyes or warm smiles or soft, gentle touches. This man is all bruising fingers and biting teeth and filthy, rutting lust. He's hard and he's _hard_ , and that suits Holmes just fine. He cannot not abide tenderness tonight, cannot bear the thought of softness or warmth. He wants nothing good; not for himself or for the world, but he welcomes each punishing thrust with a bitter, savage smile and the fist to his jaw at the end is simply a bonus for services rendered.

_Thank you._

_You're welcome._

He returns to Baker street very late - aching, bleeding, still angry but calmer now, if only a little. He stops by the washroom to clean the worst of the mess, regarding himself in the mirror, cataloging the damage with detached interest; left eye swelling shut, bottom lip shattered, one eyebrow split and flowing freely, bathing half his face in carmine gore. There are bruises the shape of fingerprints on his throat. He touches them almost reverently, then turns and limps toward the stairs, blood falling like a bridal trail of crimson petals behind him. 

He doesn't much care.

Each of the seventeen steps cause him to wince. He takes them one at a time, pausing for strength like a mountaineer traversing the steepest of passes. He considers the Morocco case but doesn't want to let go of the pain, not yet. Once secure in his own room he locks the door against Mrs. Hudson's interference and drags himself to the settee, collapsing with a weary sort of triumph. The thing is quiet. 

For now.


	3. Descent

He wakes to a vicious headache and the sound of splintering wood; precious moments pass before he can separate them enough to realize someone is kicking in his door.

Watson. Damn him.

The deductions come lightening fast, mind sharp and merciless even through the fugue cocktail of exhaustion and pain. Mrs. Hudson had seen the blood in the washroom and on the stair, had found the door locked - and unforgivable of him, to sleep so soundly he could not be roused - and had fetched the doctor in a panic, believing him in mortal danger.

And Holmes had not wanted to see him, and so of course Watson had come.

Of course.

Given more time and better health he would make for the window, as it is he barely manages to sit upright before one final blow sends the door crashing inward and the room fills with blistering blue eyes and a swirling brown coat and that immutable presence that is _Watson_...and it hurts to look at him. Hurts more than the dozen or so injuries he had received the night before, or the night before that. A hurt that goes straight down, punching through muscle and bone and sinew, leaving him breathless and raw.

Watson is speaking - lips forming words Holmes doesn't bother to hear because he knows them already- but stops cold when he takes stock of Holmes appearance, mangled features hitherto shrouded in the stygian gloom of the parlor. The doctor's eyes go wide with alarm; Holmes watches him with dull curiosity and wonders if it is the pain that muffles the sound so or if he'd damaged his hearing the night before. That blow to the ear perhaps...

But then Watson is _there_ in front of him, kneeling down, blue eyes impossibly close. Holmes forces his breathing to even as the doctor pulls off one leather glove with his teeth, the other hand already reaching for the bag beside him. Without preamble he presses two fingers to the pulse at his throat and Holmes flinches from the touch. Watson's eyes burn like a cold star.

"What in God's name happened?" His voice is sharp, dipped in equal parts anger and worry, staring at the bruises on his neck.

 

 _You left_ , Holmes doesn't tell him, because that would be admitting weakness and he has vowed he will show weakness to Watson never again. He chooses instead the offensive of silence, staring at the doctor with a shuttered expression, mouth defiantly closed.

Watson holds his gaze for a tortured moment, and it should not be so easy to slip the mask into place, to school his features into impassivity. But it is, and he does. Watson searches but finds no answers in his eyes; he never has. Finally he sighs and drops his head, hands shuffling through the medical bag with practiced ease and Holmes finds himself staring at the pale column of his throat, the slight downward curve of his mouth as he orders Mrs. Hudson to fetch warm water and turn up the lamps.

"Where are you injured?" His voice is resigned; having been rebuffed as a friend, he must instead consent to play the part of doctor.

 _Everywhere_. "I am fine."

"Your blood tells me otherwise. Men in perfect health tend to keep it on the inside."

But inside was the problem, wasn't it? They didn't make powders for that. Holmes catches Watson's wrist in a weak grasp as he brings a flannel to his face, pushing him away. He can feel his hard-won peace beginning to crack and disintegrate around him, crumbling like a cinder beneath the doctor's touch. 

"Leave it, _doctor_." The words are an arctic blast; fierce and cold.

Watson stares at him, bristling with frustration. "Damn it Holmes, quit being so bloody stubborn! Let me take a look at you."

_And what would see, if you did?_

Watson jerks his arm free and comes at him again, and the fingers that brush over his skin were never more gentle, the concern in his eyes never more pure. Watson is everything good and righteous in the world tonight, and Holmes cannot stand it; he can't stand the feel of Watson's hands, those familiar rough calluses. Can't endure the smell of his clothes or the gold of his hair or the blue, blue, blue of his eyes because the thing within him is stirring, the beast straining at it's leash and he wants Watson nowhere near so he lashes out instead, snarling and vicious. He shoves the doctor away with a force that surprises them both, driving him first from the room and then from the house with words and gestures he doesn't bother remembering, leaves him standing in the street open mouthed and silent and after he slams the door in his face Holmes races upstairs and puts the thing to sleep. If he cannot have the surcease of pain he will settle for oblivion, that all-encompassing darkness. He passes out slumped over his desk with the empty syringe still clenched tight in his fist.


	4. Chapter 4: Unrest

Watson was a very contrary man. Through the months that Holmes had all but begged him not to leave, he was determined to go. And now that Holmes has acted with the purpose of driving him off, he was even more determined to stay. Holmes wakes in his own room, in his own bed, covers pulled tight around him. He lay there for long moments, staring at the cracked and molded ceiling, the cobwebs like burial shrouds hanging limp in the corners. He knows exactly how he came to be here, and what he will find should he venture into the sitting room.

He can smell the tobacco.

He closes his eyes, searching inward but the beast is sleeping still and he feels only the faint echoes of it's uneasy slumber. He moves slowly, gritting his teeth against the pain and struggling until he is more or less upright, breathing laborious and uneven. The last dregs of opium run lazy through his blood and he feels submerged, like a half drowned sailor viewing the muted and fractured world above through a monotone kaleidoscope of water.

He feels like he's already dead.

It's not so bad, really.

How long he sits there is unknown; he doesn't bother to count the minutes. His mind is oddly, mercifully blank and he stays absolutely still, not wanting to disrupt the fragile serenity that has so unexpectedly been bestowed to him. But all too soon comes the familiar shuffle-tap of Watson's step and the moment shatters like crystal, shards embedding themselves in his brain, bringing clarity and focus and so many other things he does not want. 

The footsteps pause outside his door and a moment later comes a single, cautious knock. "Holmes?" Watson's voice drifts through the wood, muted and pitched low. "Are you awake?" A shudder runs through him, some primal reaction to the doctor's voice, but he remains silent.

Watson says nothing further but lingers just on the other side of the door. Holmes can picture him to the smallest detail; face pensive and drawn, head bowed against the wood. His fingers would linger on the handle, begging entry. But he will not enter; Holmes knows this as surely as he knows his own name, and of course he is right. Eventually Watson gives a deep, weary sigh and withdraws, footsteps fading back across the parlor floor.

Holmes spends some time taking stock of himself, evidence of Watson's handiwork clear on his body; the doctor has been busy. Wounds have been cleaned and plastered, cracked ribs bound in immaculate white cloth. He reaches a tentative hand to his brow, fingers catching over a neat row of stitches. The bloodied clothing he'd worn is gone, body clean and bare beneath the eiderdown. Watson's ministrations have been quite thorough; there is very little chance the doctor has not guessed the nature of the activity that's left him in such a state. It is not a conversation he relishes having.

Hours pass before Holmes finally emerges from his room. He does not hope that Watson has gone - that has been calculated against with mathematical certainty - but the ennui of bedroom walls and patterned blankets drives him out at last. Boredom was a dangerous thing for the detective; he was not a man who enjoyed being alone with his thoughts and with no work to distract him he was too much at the mercy of his own mind. Best to confront the doctor, and be done with it. The sooner Watson is gone from his house the sooner Holmes can pretend to forget about him.

Watson sits in his old chair by the fire, the paper in his hands creased and crumpled from constant worrying. He looks up at the sound of the bedroom door, meeting Holmes eyes from across the room.

Watson's face is a thundercloud, dark and roiling, but Holmes refuses to think about that. He pulls the remnants of his dressing gown tightly around him and steadfastly ignores the man, choosing instead to head for the Persian slipper that hung by the fire. He is careful not to look at Watson as he pours out a measure of shag, his attention wholly engrossed in the task. He can feel the doctor's eyes on him, that blue gaze that stripped the flesh from his bones and left him utterly exposed.

"Holmes."

Over the years, Watson has learned to wield that word like the most versatile of tools; as a weapon to cut or a summons to arms. It was a question, a plea, a decisive answer. It was all-encompassing, and it seemed to Holmes that were Watson deprived of the rest of the English language he could still communicate all his thoughts and desires through the myriad inflections he'd learned to give the detective's own name.

"Yes, Watson?" Holmes' voice, like his hands remains steady and he infuses the words with a causal sort of disinterest he knows the doctor particularly dislikes.

From the corner of his eye he sees Watson lean forward, his face an open book Holmes refuses to read as he places the pipe in the corner of his mouth and strikes a match against the mantel. He turns his back, watching the embers as they spark and jump in the small clay bowl.

Behind him is the sound of rustling paper and Watson's voice, surprisingly gentle saying, "Look at me, Holmes," and there is that...that something in his tone, that thing that pulls at him and Holmes finds himself turning around again.

He watches the maelstrom swirl behind the doctor's eyes as the two regard each other in silence, the moment stretching between them taut as a bow string. Then Watson clears his throat and time snaps into place, leaves Holmes flinching from the sting of its recoil.

"Holmes," Watson begins, and he steels himself against the doctor's next words because he can see the accusations writhing in the air between them, condemnations half formed and ephemeral, wanting only breath to give them life. He will call Holmes a fool and a madman and an invert, and hit true on two out of three of the charges. He will rage at Holmes' propensity for self-destruction, his proclivity for violence, his criminal appetites. He will invoke the laws of god, nature and man in his denunciations and quit the house in disgust after declaring Holmes as base and sinful a sodomite as any to have lived in Gomorrah. 

And then Watson says, "Holmes...how are you feeling?"


	5. Calculations

They are not the words he expects and so great is his shock that he takes a half-step back, maladroit feet tripping over empty air. "What?"

Some new emotion, fleeting and indefinable scurries over Watson's face and he tries to smile but it comes out wrong, hanging crooked and broken-hinged at the corner of his mouth. "I'm asking you how you're feeling. Talk to me old fellow, please."

Please. It is not a word used lightly between them. Indeed it is hardly used at all, an invocation held in the strictest reserve. Holmes' eyes narrows suspiciously. Anger he had expected. Anger and disappointment and no small amount of disgust at what he has done, what he has become (what he has always been). But this quiet, plaintive plea is something else entirely.

Watson was going off-script; something is very wrong.

Holmes looks at him then, really looks. He speaks his doctor's language quite well, has spent years becoming fluent in his every tic and sigh and glance. He knows Watson in ways the doctor did not know himself, has memorized every tell.

And yes, Watson is angry, he is furious; all the signs are there but of course Holmes does not need to see them to know that much. He can feel it coming off him in waves, pulsing through the room like a dark heartbeat. 

But that is not all; it is not even half. There is something else here and had Holmes paid him the slightest attention before now he would have seen it; the tiny vines of worry tugging at the corners of his mouth, the hooded fear in his eyes. Watson is a seething morass of twisting emotions, anger and sorrow and fear all intertwined like celtic knotwork. He is an absolute wreck and all Holmes can think is, _how fascinating_. 

He hears himself say, "You look a fright, old boy."

Watson's lips part on a shuddering breath, nothing at all like a laugh and he stares at Holmes, incredulity wiping his features clean. But his face hardens a moment later as he reaches some internal decision, the set of his shoulders reminding Holmes of a soldier marching to war. But his eyes...oh, his eyes look like a man headed for the gallows. "I know what happened," he says softly.

Holmes feels a stinging in his palm, looks down to find four crimson sickles scored into the soft flesh. His skin shivers and jumps and tries to crawl away, forsaking the dark thing inside him and he wants nothing so much as to be someone else. Anyone else. "Then we needn't speak of it."

But Watson will not be deterred, "There was blood on your trousers." 

His lip curls, words burning his tongue like acid, "A very astute observation Watson. It is a great comfort to know that in a world of uncertainty I may always rely on you to note the obvious."

He watches for the tick in Watson's jaw, the tale-tell sign of his ire, but the doctor remains resolute, unassailable and damnably single-minded. He will speak his peace, whether Holmes wishes to hear it or not. The detective feels something sharp and rabid building in his rib cage, squeezing his lungs. He thinks it might be panic. 

"Who did this to you?" 

Holmes freezes.

He had been certain that Watson knew; it seems impossible he could not know yet as Holmes looks at his face, at the pain bleeding off him like an open sore he realizes Watson didn't know anything, not a damn thing. He has it all wrong and God had Holmes taught him _nothing_?

Oh but that was just like Watson wasn't it? Always making assumptions before collecting all the facts, always jumping to the most erroneous of conclusions even when all the facts were presented, always blinded to unpleasant truths by his own shining white light.

But enough of all that. Enough. Holmes decides, just this once, to let the error go uncorrected. It will be a valuable lesson.

_Who did this to you?_

Ten feet away, Watson waits for his answer.


	6. Deception

Holmes considers the possibilities, the various lies and obfuscations. But he is tired, torn down in a way that has nothing to do with any physical ailment and prevarication seems far more effort than he has energy to spare. Anyway, his head hurts. He settles on the truth with a careless shrug, "It doesn't matter." 

Watson's eyes go wide, face telegraphing the shock that rips through him, lighting him up like a Tesla coil. 

"Of course it matters! Christ, Holmes-" He stops, visibly overcome and struggling for control, knuckles clenched bone-white around the carved wooden armrests of the chair. When he speaks again, he's wrangled his voice into softer tones, though Holmes can still hear the dark fury behind it, clear as Bow bells. "How many were there?"

Of course Watson would assume they had attacked in number. The possibility that Holmes could be so brutalized by a single man had most likely never occurred to him, and he would be right. Except...

"Two." Again the truth, but not in the sense Watson means it.

The doctor gives a snort of disbelief. "Two men did this to you?" But incredulity shifts to concern as his mind goes exactly where Holmes knew it would, albeit several seconds slower than expected, "Were you drugged?"

Well, he cannot say he'd been in his right mind, though that is far too cryptic an answer and one that would only invite closer scrutiny; a scenario Holmes wishes to avoid at all costs. "Would you like all the sordid details, doctor, or shall you be contented with those that pertain to your profession?" The words land like a blow to the stomach and he feels a twinge of destructive satisfaction as Watson reels, face stricken. But Holmes is merciless, rushing toward the precipice with arms outstretched, doomed and damned and uncaring. "Perhaps over tea I shall recount the whole of the affair for you, yet another story you may use to entertain your adoring readers. And what shall you call it? ' The Adventure of the Bethnal-Green Sodomy' has rather a n-" Watson looks up sharply at this, gaze shrewd and searching and Holmes' mouth snaps shut; he has said too much. 

But Watson tended to have that effect on him. 

It was maddening.

Watson is pale and shaking, his defenses laying in ruins but he was nothing if not tenacious. "I think only of your welfare. If they gave you anything..." 

"I am fine." Holmes wonders how much of his life has been spent saying those words to Watson, a mantra repeated so often it has nearly lost meaning. He is speaking by rote now, a familiar liturgy performed without effort; only Watson thinks anything has changed.

The words bring the good doctor to his feet, "You are not fine, Holmes. You are many things, and I doubt I shall ever know them all, but right now, one thing you are definitely _not_ is "fine".

Holmes wonders if Watson has any idea how right he is. Probably not. It was one of his endearing qualities that he so rarely did.

The beast stirs. He feels it wake, that cold, pitiless drag across his stomach. Holmes pulls the knife from Watson's chest, plunges it into his own with reckless indifference. "Go home to your wife, Watson. She is waiting for you."

"I have spoken to Mary already," and Holmes hates how he flinches at the name, "She understands. I am to take as much time as needed."

It is a lie to rival some of Holmes' own, though Watson does not realize it. "I do not require pity."

"I do not offer it. I am your friend, Holmes. Let me aid you in this."

Holmes laughs at him, a sharp, mocking bark. They are talking at cross purposes again, these two wholly divergent conversations tangled together by common words and misunderstanding. It is a game Holmes has often played with his doctor in the past, amusing himself by estimating how long it would take Watson to catch on. 

But Watson will not catch on this time, because Holmes will not allow it. Again, he gives Watson nothing but the truth he so insists upon.

"You have no idea what you are talking about. You cannot "aid" me, doctor. This is not a thing to be fixed with plasters and splints." He takes a breath, delivered the ultimatum, a last desperate bid for redemption before the darkness consumes him utterly, "Go home, Watson. Before I become violent with you."

And just like that, Watson says, "No."

Holmes' eyes fly to him, furious, but Watson does not let him speak. "I will not 'go home'. You may become violent if you wish, and if it will help you then you have my blessing. But if you're to be rid of me, you shall have to throw me out yourself; I will not be ordered away. Not this time."

"No of course not. You leave only at your convenience." It is more truth than intended, and he hates that it had escaped his lips. There is no way Watson could misinterpret the bitterness in his voice, the sharp, hard edges of the words.

But Watson remains intractable, solid and immovable as stone, "Then it is a very good thing that I do not find it at all convenient to leave." He settles purposefully in the chair, stretching out with deliberate slowness, daring Holmes to act upon the threat of violence.

Holmes feels himself shaking apart, bits of himself falling away like old bricks. His head is splitting open. He feels frenzied, some strange feeling scrabbling inside him, crazed and gibbering. He could attack Watson right now. He could, and he would probably win; the doctor's heart will not be in the fight, and he will restrain himself against doing Holmes further injury. He could indeed throw Watson out, and for a moment he is tempted. Lord, how he is tempted. 

His legs give out instead. It is a number of things, really. Adrenalin and head trauma and the fact he has not eaten for several days. Watson is by his side almost before he hits the ground, hands reaching for him, the detective's name sharp on his tongue.


	7. Chapter 7

"Holmes!" 

" _Don't_." The word drops from his lips, bitter as cyanide and twice as deadly and Watson freezes instantly because he had once been a damn good soldier and his instincts are still sharp.

Holmes staggers to his feet under his own power, gripping the edge of the mantel for support, cold, flat marble hard under his hands; nothing at all like the warm strength of a friendly arm. Watson hovers, face split open and aching but he does not attempt to touch him again.

It is a small mercy. 

Holmes rests his head against the wall, grateful for the solid wood at his back and closes his eyes because that way he will not have to look at Watson, and that makes it all a bit easier to bear. He can still feel him though, feel him and hear him and smell him and that's probably the worst, that horribly familiar scent of cigarettes and sandalwood and that light, dusky odor that has no name but is simply _Watson_ \- and now tainted with a woman's scent; the tiny hints of lavender, traces of perfume and sage. 

She uses a different soap on his shirts.

It is another in a long line of petty betrayals, a thousand tiny cuts; Watson is four pounds heavier than when he left Baker Street. He's picked up five new clients Holmes does not know the names of. He uses a different aftershave in the mornings now because Mary is sensitive to the old. The John Watson Holmes once knew is dying by inches, stripped away a layer at a time until one day everything he is will be corrupted and some other man will be left standing in his place; a stranger who wears Watson's clothes, and Watson's face. 

Holmes is fairly certain he will hate that man, whoever he may be.

But Watson is speaking again, voice scraping like an untuned violin, talking of impossible things like rest and healing, urging Holmes towards some abstract concept of peace.

 _"There is no peace," saith my God, "for the wicked",_ he thinks madly, but yet allows himself to be drawn in the general direction of the settee; that familiar, haunted place where he and Watson had laughed and fought and bled together.

Watson continues to talk, mouth forming shapeless words that fall like feathers between them, weightless and soft and the pitch of his voice is still wrong, the flutter of his hands too frantic but Holmes can feel the doctor's simple alchemy working on him nonetheless, that strange calm that begins to settle over him like an early spring.

He wants none of it.

It is a false promise, a cruel hoax. True Watson is here now, but that means nothing. What use is today without a tomorrow? Watson had left once before and so he would again. Even now, he is not wholly in the room. Even now, half his heart is somewhere else. And half measures are useless to a man like Holmes. 

So, he will not be tortured with the reminder of what he has lost. He will not suffer polite dinners and false smiles and the auld lang syne of erstwhile friends while the beast inside tears him apart in the lonely hours. He will not pretend, with the false veneer of English propriety, that he had not been mortally wounded when Watson left him to fight his demons alone. He will _not_ , and if he cannot have Watson completely then he does not want him at all.

These are all the things he tells himself as he sits and lets the doctor's hands ghost over his skin, lets his voice settle over his mind like a opium fugue.


	8. Chapter 8

They are beautiful lies, expertly forged by a master craftsman and Holmes thinks it rather a shame he cannot believe them.

But he knows himself too well for that. He has long since turned his shrewd gaze inward, stood staring into the abyss that filled the space where other men had souls, listening to the beast howl back up at him. He has cast his eyes unblinking into every dark corner of himself, ruthlessly exposed every secret. Sherlock Holmes is a man who knows exactly what he is, and what he is capable of.

Self-deception is not in his nature.

Neither is forgiveness.

"Would you like something for the pain?" Watson's voice cuts through his thoughts.

Neither is forgiveness...

"No."

Eyes closed and he can still sense the doctor's disapproval. Watson has never understood Holmes' preoccupation with pain, dismissing his cavalier attitude toward mortality as nothing more than recklessness, fancifully describing him as an automaton, a machine; cold and calculating as Babbage's famed device. A creature of intellect which eschewed physical concerns in favor of mental pursuits. Watson will never know, never realize what it means; the relief to be found in bringing torment to the surface. Like drawing poison from a wound. 

But then Watson is a man fundamentally at peace with himself. He does not realize this of course, having been taught from an early age the fine art of self-flagellation by pharisaic fools in black who mistook guilt for piety - and thus he carries his scars and suffers his plagues and thinks too little of himself - but his nightmares are no more than any soldier might bear, and the blood on his hands a natural concomitant of his profession. When Watson dreams, they are not the dreams of the damned.

"It may help you to rest." That pleading note to his voice now, and Holmes finds himself crushing a spur of sudden anger. He does not like hearing Watson beg; the man is made of sterner stuff than that.

"I do not feel like sleeping." His tone belies nothing and Watson makes a small noise, a gentle huff of air on the back of Holmes' head, but acquiesces.

"Very well."

Silence, thick and filled with unspoken things and Holmes can feel it as the precursor to some new interrogation, a storm brewing dark on the horizon. It's not hard to guess which way the wind will blow.

"Will you-" Watson's voice breaks and he breathes deeply, fortifying himself for the battle ahead, then starts again. "We should contact the Yard."

"No."

"Holmes-"

"No."

Watson says nothing but Holmes knows he is only just beginning. Even now he is eyeing the distance between them; a soldier stuck far behind enemy lines, studying the hostile and mine-strewn terrain for the safest passage. 

"You cannot let this crime go unaddressed."

Holmes lets the silence speak for him, lets Watson make whatever he will of it.

The good doctor tries again, forging ahead with dogged determination. "You have fought for justice all your life. Will you not now seek it for yourself?" Then, "Think at least of others. What of the next innocent man who falls prey?"

A mocking smile twists his mouth. "There were no innocent men involved, I assure you."

A shivering breath like pain, "How can you speak so? Surely you don't believe-" and suddenly Watson is there before him, face open and earnest and oh so _sincere_. "Holmes, Holmes! Look at me." He commands, and there is no supplication in his tone now, no gentle plea. It is the voice of a man forged on the battlefield and Holmes does look at him then, because he can't _not_. Their eyes meet and for a moment he is lost, set adrift on high blue seas. It is a single moment of weakness, but that is all Watson has ever needed. He marches forward, advancing before Holmes can rally his wits enough to stop him. "You did not deserve this."

 

That, of course, is entirely untrue.

"You," Holmes says softly with unimpeachable conviction, "are a fool."

"Yes," Watson replies simply.

"You are a _fool_." Holmes says again, snarling, desperation chewing a ragged edge on the words. The beast rakes claws through his stomach, it's great wings blotting out the light, coils crushing whatever goodness remained and with a sudden mad desperation he grabs Watson's jacket, jerking him forward, faces inches apart, "Fool," he spits.

But Watson merely allows himself to be manhandled, accepting all abuse, taking it into himself and Holmes can tell he is prepared to take still more. He continues to stare at him with eyes sad and wise beyond their years, then tips his head forward, bringing it to rest gently against Holmes' own. 

"I know." 

"Damn you." Holmes whispers, voice strangled between a curse and a prayer and he feels rather than sees the ghost of a smile that alights briefly on the doctor's face. 

"If that's what it takes." 

He shudders, feels great foundations tremble. Coils loosen, the beast retreats. Not far, no more than a step or two but it is enough. Enough to breathe, enough to think; enough to remember laughter and color and the sound of a violin. 

And there it is; the reason for it all. He can live without Watson, that much is true. He can survive in that grey, dead world that exists somewhere beyond the doctor's grace. He can survive, and some dark part of him might even thrive there. 

But it is not about survival. It has never been about that. 

Holmes opens his mouth to say...something, anything, whatever is needed but then Watson brings a hand to his shoulder, warmth seeping into a skin that had forgotten it long ago. 

"Let go, Holmes," and Holmes doesn't know if he is speaking metaphorically or not and it doesn't matter because something breaks inside him then, the battlements of some ancient fortification crumbling and falling and sliding into the sea and he is barely aware of having gone to his knees, only vaguely registers the fingers tangled in his hair, the stinging pain as they pull at his scalp. 

Then rough hands cover his, fingers gently coaxing his own to relax and a water-soft voice in his ear telling him to let go, just let go... but he cannot. That is the one thing he cannot do, not ever. 

So instead he reaches for Watson, and holds on. 


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay, been busy moving to the other side of the world.  
> For whoever is still reading, thanks for your patience.

Days pass. The physical wounds begin to heal as they always do, and there is a catharsis to be had here too; a comfort in watching black bruises fade to yellow, the feel of skin knitting over flesh. The abiding proof that there are some wounds, at least, which can be healed by time.

Watson stays. 

He stays and refuses to give up the good fight, still urging Holmes to go to the Yard by various threats and pleas, culminating in the insistence that he will chase after the villains himself if Holmes does not. It is an empty threat for Watson cannot act in advance of facts and Holmes will offer him none but they are lively argument none the less; Watson trying to keep his temper for Holmes' sake, and Holmes effortlessly bating him at every turn. It is almost unsporting, the ease with which Holmes plays him but there is a reckoning to be had and Holmes is due his pound of flesh; he has not forgotten Watson's treachery.

In darker hours, alone in his room Holmes finds that he can almost hate Watson; hate the power Watson has over him, hate this desperate, cloying need of him. A need which spurs him on an ever reckless course though he knows well enough disaster is all that awaits either of them at the end. 

But there is nothing else to be done. He cannot fight his feelings for Watson because he has done that already; a long and disastrous campaign that left him utterly defeated and overrun. Watson stormed through his every defense, beat back every maneuver, crashed over and through like the biblical flood, leaving Holmes gasping for air and dry ground. 

And the damnedest thing is, Watson isn't even aware of it; what he's done, the monumental victory that has been his. So quick, so effortless, and so utterly complete has been his victory that he doesn't even know a war had been fought. That Holmes had surrendered to him long ago, King and Country, and Watson never even _noticed_.

That more than anything, makes Holmes hate him. Almost.

And so he takes his petty revenge, these stolen hours and days. Keeps Watson from home and hearth, from Mary, from the truth. Keeps him here at Baker Street where he belongs. Keeps him by his sickbed, keeps him...keeps him.

But on the third day, he still wakes up alone. The weather is clear and sharp, cold English sun doing little to warm either the city or the hearts of men. Watson is not in the sitting room though signs of him lay scattered about like so much detritus; a morning paper folded neatly on the table, a half-empty saucer beside it, a cigarette butt flicked hastily toward the fire grate which had missed its mark and landed upon the rug.

Watson's hat and coat hang upon the rack so he had not gone out, but a brown paper bag sits by the door, permeating the room with the faint hint of lavender. Holmes' stomach makes a slow and sickly turn. He eyes the offending bag as though it were the heart of all evil in the world, then slips out the front door, careful to walk in the subtle spaces where the floor boards didn't creak. 

Voices, soft and low, murmur below him, too quiet to catch, their cadence a gentle babble of water. Holmes ghosts down the steps to the landing. Watson stands by the door, one hand resting easily at her waist, head bent at an intimate angle. He's speaking to her, not a whisper, not a secret, but something deeply private none the less. She kisses him then, pure and sweet and utterly without design and Watson returns it, a boyish grin attached to his face. Holmes realizes it has been many days since he's last seen Watson smile. He turns and vanishes up the steps, unobserved by either party.

It will not do.


	10. Chapter 10

Two days later Holmes takes a case, and it is two days again before Watson next sees him. The doctor comes in late Thursday night, bare-headed and weary and he does not expect to find Holmes there, so of course that is where he is.

"Good evening Watson. Out for a midnight stroll?" The stage is set perfectly for the confrontation, every detail seen to with impeccable design. The room is dark, limned in firelight and far from being cozy there is something ominous about it, harmless shadows made monstrous by the flickering orange flames. Holmes himself sits with his chair pulled away from the fire, tucked into the darkest corner of the room.

"Where in hell have you been?" Watson snaps without preamble, oblivious to the scene and Holmes scowls at the wasted effort as his artistry goes unnoticed. Watson stinks of the river, of dead fish and open drains and the mud mixed with horse shit that spatters his trousers to the knee, marking the doctor's passage through the city clear as road signs.

Holmes' smiles as he regards him; a death's mask that stretches his mouth into ghastly shapes. Where in hell indeed. "Earning the rent, my good man. Surely you would not begrudge me that."

"You took a case without telling me?" The accusation lays thick upon his words, as if he had any cause to object. As if Watson had not removed himself from Holmes' life with the precision of a doctor performing an amputation, leaving the detective with a phantom pain whenever he noticed the empty space at his side where his friend used to be.

And he notices constantly.

"I have indeed, and London is one criminal the less for it. Did you have supper?" 

But the doctor is in no mood to be humored, the frown carved into his mouth like wood. "You were gone two days; I've covered half of London in search of you. You should not spend yourself so freely," he chastises, "you are not yet well." 

Holmes laughs at him then, mocking and vicious. As if "well" were ever a thing he could aspire to. "I am whole enough for this, good sir.'" He replies, a careless flick of his hand encompassing Baker street and London and all of Holmes' mad, twisted world as "this".

Watson's face slackens and he shakes his head, hands spreading in supplication. "I was _worried_ , Holmes. Please- please do not frighten me so. You cannot know the effect it has."  


But Holmes does not feel like mercy; it is far too late for that anyway. The beast is too close to the surface, slithering cold just beneath his skin, poisoning all good intentions and leaving them to rot away like gangrenous flesh. 

He doesn't care. He wants nothing of good intentions. He wants to tear the world asunder, to watch Rome burn, to topple the pillars like Samson in the temple. He wants to snuff the light from the stars and the sun and Watson's eyes. He sinks further into the shadowed recess of the chair, pipe smoke wreathing about his head like an ill-fitting crown. "I do not require a keeper, Watson, and if I did I would not appoint you to the task. You have proven exceptionally bad at it."

"Don't," Watson says, a warning in his voice. "Don't do this. I know the pain you are in, Holmes, and I know your wounds run far deeper than flesh. But blaming me will not bring you peace."

"Perhaps it is not you that I blame," he retorts.

A stupid man would wonder at his meaning. A stupid man would ask him to ellucidate, confusion wrinkling his brow as he attempted to mine truth from Holmes' words.

Watson is not a stupid man. He knows exactly what was meant, and what was implied. His response is no less than expected.

"You manipulative _bastard_ ," he seethes, "Don't you dare bring Mary into this! She is not your enemy and neither am I! All I have wanted is to help you!"

"And I tell you again; you cannot."

"Because you will not let me! For whatever perverse reason you would rather sit there and wallow in misery, kill yourself with your bottles of poison and you would have me watch!"

"You needn't watch. You may leave, if you find my behavior so distasteful," he says, and only because it insures that Watson will not.

"All I find _distasteful_ ," he shouts angrily, "is that the men responsible for this are still alive and breathing free air, instead of having their necks broken at the end of a rope and all because you will not act to stop them!" He stops, running a hand over his face before dropping heavily into his chair. "I cannot bear this Holmes," he says quietly, the fire of moments ago quenched by bone-deep weariness. "I know you know who is behind this, else you would not work so hard to keep it from me. Tell me who they are. Tell me anything at all: a name, a face. Describe the mud on their shoes for Gods' sake. Give me something to take to the Yard...I-I cannot bear this."

"You cannot bear it," Holmes retorts, "Forgive me then, for upsetting your delicate sensibilities with this...misfortune."  


Watson has nothing to say to that, and Holmes watches in mean satisfaction as the words die soundless on his lips. He stands, keeping his face turned away and makes for the bedroom. "If you've nothing more to say on the subject, I shall retire." 

"Why do you push me away?" Watson asks, and the quiet ache in his voice pulls at Holmes even more than he expected it to. But it is too late for that as well. 

When he speaks again his mouth if full of teeth and the snarling of the beast. "If you will remember, my dear Watson, it was not I who left. Goodnight."


	11. Chapter 11

It's a devil's night, kinetic lighting ripping apart the London sky, the accompanying earth-shaking cracks of thunder. It's the sort of night fit for neither man nor beast, when the lamps will hardly stay lit, and the streets are empty save for a vicious clawing wind that bites at the corners of the buildings. On this night there is a light in window of Baker street, a deceptively cheerful glow that masks the chaos within. 

The violin shrieks. A broken, injured sound like madman’s laughter, or the cries of the damned. It's an off-key tune played with the bow half-shredded, hairs coming loose from the ferrule to twitch like hanged men at the end of a rope. Holmes whirls about the room like a man possessed, fulgurate hell fire running through his veins, shadow leaping from wall to wall. His thoughts are a bedlam riot; crazed, unrefined and violent. 

The evening had not begun this way. As with most things, it was all Watson's fault...

*********************************

_"I'll be returning home tomorrow morning," the doctor told him over breakfast._

_"Ah," Holmes said distractedly, "and where will you be between now and then?"_

_Watson sighed. Watson was always sighing at him; Holmes could write a monograph on the subject. "I meant _my_ home; Cavendish." Watson's eyes glanced off him before adding, "I don't live here anymore, and you are nearly healed." _

_They were the first words Watson had said to him in nearly a day. Holmes had been expecting them, in the same way he expected most things. That should have made it mean less, but it didn't. Nothing had ever done that._

_"And you are nearly a husband," Holmes retorted , standing abruptly to snatch up a piece of toast before kicking the chair out of his path._

_"Nearly?" Watson asked, eyebrows hiked high across his brow._

_"If we are speaking of my recovery in relative degrees, so must we speak of your devotions in an equal manner."_

_A moment of perilous silence followed before Watson answered, "I am not even going to ask you what that means. I will not be drawn into another argument with you; certainly not about this. I have done all I can to help you both as a doctor and a friend."_

_"And how have you made out?"_

_"I have come to the conclusion that you do not wish to be helped; not by me."_

_The air hissed through his teeth. "I have told you, countless times now, you cannot help me. And here you claim to have come to this conclusion all on your own?" He tutted, "How disingenuous of you old boy. At least pay me the credit of having made the discovery first."_

_"You were right," Watson conceded, quiet sadness in his voice and Holmes hated that Watson's sorrow didn't diminish him but rather lent him a quiescent sort of dignity. "Whatever you suffer, it is no better for my being here. And yet, I fear what you will do to yourself once I am gone."_

_"And so you hoped to hold me together with force of will and your own two hands?" Holmes said, his voice scorched black with scorn._

_"I had hoped, yes."_

********************************** 

It is the same problem, the same old complaint. A chronic ache in his bones that cannot be soothed; Watson loves another. Keeping him at Baker street has not changed this fundamental truth. If anything it only brings it into sharper relief, for Mary's ghost is everywhere; Watson's eyes haunted with her presence. 

She is the stain on his carpet, the stone in his shoe. He hates the part of Watson that loves her and hating Watson is a difficult thing to endure, akin to hating the air that fills his lungs, the food that sustains him. It has left him open and bleeding, his mind on fire. A crippled mess of man. And so, there is the cocaine. If he must bleed and burn, he will do so on his own terms. 

An empty vial rolls across the floor to rest against the iron grate with the muted clink of metal on glass.

Shadows leap, the fire pops, the storm rages on. There's blood on the strings of the Stradivarius, water pouring from the sky. He’s composing a new piece – or was, some seven hours ago. It was a side effect of the twelve percent solution that hours and days be somewhat immaterial; the sun unsteady in the sky, time imperfect in its march.

His fingers slip, stuttering and clumsy, their usual grace a casualty of the drug, his body at the mercy of a heart beating much, much too fast. He keeps going, fingers chasing the music up and down the strings, head full of demons as it reaches a screeching crescendo. The fire pops, the shadows leap, Water pours from the-

“Holmes.”  
The world stops turning and Holmes is thrown from its surface, sent flying into the dead cold of space. He spins, a drunkenly precarious movement that nearly sends him sprawling to the floor. 

Watson is standing in the middle of the room, water running rivulets down his collar. He looks otherworldly, shatteringly beautiful; a seraph summoned from the Empyrean by some ancient magic. Holmes blinks, weaving slightly and listing hard to port. 

“Watson!” He cries with sudden manic joy, eyes too shiny and too black, the beast grinning out from behind a mask that doesn't quite fit. “Your timing is impeccable. I have just composed a sonata, and am in need of an audience.”

“You are in need of sleep and food.” Watson tells him flatly but Holmes sweeps that comment aside with a clumsy wave of his bow.

“I think not. Now, if you will listen, I have arranged-“

“ _You_ will listen!” Watson thunders as he surges forward, voice splitting lighting between them. “You cannot keep doing this. I have given you as much patience as my conscious will allow, but no longer. No longer, Holmes. We must put an end to this; you are driving yourself mad.”

He does not laugh, but it is a near thing. Instead he turns back to the window, drawing the bow over the strings once more.  
Watson is faster than he ought to be. A break in stride and a slowness of movement would be a proper gentleman’s response to being shot in the leg, but not Watson. No, not his dear doctor. Watson is quick, so damn quick when he wants to be and the next instant he is across the room, pulling the bow from Holmes' stuttering grasp. 

“Sit, before you fall,” he commands, but that is wrong too because Holmes fell long ago. Ages and ages now it seems.

“I did not expect you back so soon,” Holmes says, addressing the wooden beam that runs the length of the parlor. He’d hung himself from that beam once. Watson had come for him then, too.

“Hush” Watson snaps, guiding Holmes toward the interstice of a nearby chair but stopping cold when he spies the the empty cocaine vial. “For god’s sake, are you _trying_ to kill yourself? How much did you take?” 

“I am quite in control of the situation,” he says, reaching back to pat Watson's arm and missing badly. 

"You're a damn liar. Why are you doing this to yourself?" 

Holmes mouth twists, catching on the hook of his smile. "Because you were not here to stop me," he says cruelly , too far gone for anything but honesty.  
Watson changes their trajectory, hand firm on Holmes' back as he stumbles. He maneuvers them into his one-time surgery, now a cluttered mess of papers and abandoned experiments in various stages of neglect. Watson lays him down, takes his pulse, parts his shirt at the neck with warm fingers and curses him for a fool. With no music to sustain him now Holmes can feel his body consuming itself, space like a great empty cavern inside him. The air is too thin and it makes him gasp, vision going grey at the edges.

"Stay awake," Watson snaps but his voice is distant and hollow, echoing words shouted over a thundering river. 

Watson spends the next twenty minutes or so trying to save Holmes life but the detective isn't really aware of it, his consciousness swallowed up in a great expanse of white. 

He thinks Watson asks him things. He isn't certain. 

It's well past sunrise when he comes to his senses, an inexplicably cheerful light pouring in through the window. He stands with a wince, stiff-necked and fragile and shuffles into the wreckage of the parlor, pulling his pipe off the mantle and lighting it with bandaged fingers.

He reconstructs the evening as he smokes, reading the chaos of the night in the wreckage around him; the overturned desk, the shredded bow, the sheet music littering the floor, crimped at the edges with red stained fingerprints.

Yet for all that is here, it's what is missing that he notices first and last.

Watson is gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am a 3 a.m writer. I have always been a 3 a.m writer. Unfortunately I have found that with a toddler in the house the only thing one wants to do at 3 a.m is sleep, and if one is not sleeping at 3 a.m it certainly isn't because they're feeling creative. 
> 
> What I'm trying to say is, this chapter was a bitch to write. I'm still not completely happy with it but I've ripped it apart and re-written it so many times I'm sick of looking at it, so up it goes. 
> 
> Apologies for my tardiness to anyone who might still be reading; don't blame you if you're not. All I can say is; I really want to finish this story before I die. (Hopefully I'll finish it before you die, too.)


End file.
